Swine flu kills US baby

The swine flu outbreak has resulted in the first death outside Mexico today – a 23-month-old child from Texas. Meanwhile, three more cases were confirmed in the UK, adding to the two previously disclosed in Scotland, Gordon Brown said.

The infant’s death from swine flu in the US was confirmed by Dr Richard Besser, the acting director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. He gave no other details about the child. More than 150 people are suspected to have died of the virus in Mexico and the illness has spread around the globe, but news of the first death outside the country where it originated will increase fears that a pandemic could develop.

A US government source told Reuters that the child had recently visited Mexico. The US has confirmed 65 cases of swine flu, most of them mild, but Besser said more deaths were likely.

Meanwhile, Germany’s first three cases of swine flu has been confirmed. The Robert Koch Institute said they involved: a 22-year-old woman being treated for flu-like symptoms in a Hamburg hospital after returning from Mexico; a man in his 30s being treated at a university in the southern city of Regensburg; and a 37-year-old woman from another southern town who recently travelled to Mexico.

Separately flu experts around the world will hold a telephone conference in an emergency review of the outbreak organised by the WHO to collect information on what is known about how the disease spreads, how it affects human health and how it can be treated. A report will be published shortly after the meeting ends.